Boing Boing » giant squid

A global society of squid

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:27:01 +0000

It's a small squid world, after all. A recent study shows that giant squid from all around the globe have remarkably low levels of genetic diversity — essentially, writes Tina Hesman Saey, they're all more closely related than scientists previously thought. Giant squid, as it turns out, are a single species, traveling, living, and breeding all around the planet.

The Kraken vs. Mark Dery

David Pescovitz — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:51:42 +0000

Did you catch Mark Dery's profound feature on the first-ever footage of a giant squid at home in the deep?

Time and again, marauding cephalopods rise out of the fathomless depths of our collective unconscious, from the 12-armed Scylla in Homer’s Odyssey, plucking men from passing ships like canapés off a waiter’s tray, to Pliny’s foul-smelling “polyp,” whose stupefyingly bad breath “tormented the dogs,” to the beached “devil-fish” described in 1879 by the biologist Thomas Kirk. Quoting from an awestruck New Zealander who happened on the carcass, Kirk conjured a “repulsive-looking brute” with tentacles “as thick as a man’s leg,” “horrid goggle eyes,” and “a powerful beak,” reputed by the Maori natives to grab men and rip their insides out. (Duly chastened, the New Zealander vowed, “No more sea-bathing for me!”)

The Kraken Wakes: What Architeuthis is Trying to Tell Us

Release the kraken!

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:00:43 +0000

What do you need to catch a giant squid? At The Verge, Arikia Millikan goes behind-the-scenes on the recent, successful expedition to capture the kraken on video for the first time.

Kraken video to be released

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:29:30 +0000

Still from video of giant squid, courtesy NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel.

Discovery Channel and Japan's NHK teamed up to capture video of one of the most elusive and fascinating deep ocean creatures: the giant squid. The joint press release announcing the air date of this long-coveted footage contains the sort of prose I wish we were also seeing in this week's round of CES announcements:

With razor-toothed suckers and eyes the size of dinner plates, tales of the creature have been around since ancient times. The Norse legend of the sea monster the Kraken and the Scylla from Greek mythology might have derived from the giant squid. This massive predator has always been shrouded in secrecy, and every attempt to capture a live giant squid on camera in its natural habitat, considered by many to be the Holy Grail of natural history filmmaking, has failed. Until now.

Discovery Channel’s Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real will premiere in the US on Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 10/9c as the season finale of Curiosity. In Japan, NHK airs their special also this month.

Above and below in this blog post, still images taken from their video of the "glittering," 10-foot-long cephalopod. The team encountered it last July about one kilometer below the surface of the sea near Japan's Ogasawara Islands, about 620 miles south of Tokyo.

According to the announcement, the Discovery/NHK joint production team spent more than 285 hours in the abyss, with 55 sub dives, some at depths of over 3,000 feet. The crew included scientists such as oceanographer and marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder, marine biologist Steve O'Shea and zoologist Dr. Tsunemi Kobodera of the National Science Museum of Japan, in addition to engineers, technicians and sub pilots.

They used "two deep sea submersibles with panoramic views, ultra-sensitive camera systems with light invisible to squid, bio luminescent lures and secret squid attractants." I hope we'll hear more about the camera rig and cinematography.

In an interview with AFP, Kubodera said the giant squid would have measured eight meters long if its two longest arms weren't missing.

"He gave no explanation for its missing arms."

Still from video of giant squid, courtesy NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel.